In the past Stromness had been another whaling station on South Georgia. In later years it became used as a ship repair yard.
It has historical significance because it is where Shackleton hiked to after his landing on the other side of South Georgia.
In the afternoon of Sunday March 5th Fram sailed from Grytviken around to Stromness for our last landing on South Georgia .
In the afternoon Fram sailed around the coast of South Georgia to Stromness from Cumberland Bay.
Landing on Stromness
The sea was calm compared to our landing at St Andrews Bay.
As we landed there was an elephant seal surrounded by fur seal pups on the beach.
Our landing was some way away from the remains of the whaling station.
Other pups were swimming in a pool just up the beach.
Inland from Stromness
Our path inland took us past the pool, past the warning signs and across open moor land that was extremely boggy. There were large tufts of grass interspersed with large patches of snow.
Several kilometers from the beach were the waterfalls that Shackleton descended as he crossed South Georgia. We decided that given the terrain and our time onshore we would stay close to the beach and only walk less than half a kilometre inland. Later we watched videos of the South Georgia pipit close by the falls taken by fellow passengers. Clearly the rat eradication project is beginning to work.
Our route was marked by cones and where there where concentrations of seals or seal pups then members of the expedition team were stationed to protect us.
Along the way we encountered King penguins, Gentoo penguins, seal pups and female fur seals. The local birds were not worried at all by our presence.
We did see some unusually coloured seals away across the marshes.
These are the views as we walked back to beach and the whaling station.
Stromness whaling station
At the beach we went for a closer look at the piles of metal outside the exclusion zone.
Now it is now too dangerous to approach the buildings because of their poor repair and more importantly because they contain asbestos.
The junk we could get close to was mainly propellers along with a crows nest off a whale chaser. This was all left from the station’s later years as a repair station.
Stromness beach
By now the pond had both King and Gentoo penguins as well as seal pups.
The pups were harassing the Gentoo penguins but when they tried the same tactics with King penguins they were ignored. These two King penguins came to investigate all the activity around the pond. They were not phased by the pups or by the passengers.
One of our fellow passengers left his Canon EOS videoing these two King penguins while he went off to take pictures elsewhere on the beach.
Back to Fram
Our ride back to Fram was extended by a sail-by of the ruined whaling station.
This allowed us to get a better view of the buildings.
We were then treated to a high speed ride out into the bay before turning back to Fram. Tot sure who enjoyed this more us or the A/B?
And then back to Fram.
The Polar Circle boats
Back on Fram we took time to have a closer look at the Polar Circle boats. Here I am with a fellow student of the OU/RPS Digital Photography course.
Certificate time!
Back in our cabin we had received a thank you certificate from the SGHT for our morning’s donation. We also had certificates for Hurtigruten to celebrate our journey down to Antarctica.
That evening we had a buffet dinner in the restaurant. This would be our last evening inside the Antarctic Convergence.
Evening snow storm
Later in the evening as Fram started her journey to the Falklands we passed through a snow storm. From the Observation Lounge we had a fabulous view of the snow illuminated by Fram’s searchlights.
